The Bush administration has widely been assumed to have significantly favored evangelical Christian perspectives and organizations in its policies. A…
Waking up to still being a faith-based nation
church and state
What does Azusa have to do with Washington?
Does a candidate's faith matter? That seems to be one of the more pressing questions being asked in opinion pieces…
Perplexed by Pentecostalism
Lost in the discussion of Sarah Palin's religion is an appreciation for the diversity of American Pentecostalism, past and present.
The challenge of creating change
Abdullahi An-Na‘im's Islam and the Secular State has rightfully received a great deal of attention and commentary. A prominent Muslim…
“Call it X”
I am grateful for the kind and thoughtful comments posted at The Immanent Frame about Islam and the Secular State.…
Does tolerance require struggle?
Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im's erudite and thought-provoking book Islam and The Secular State provides a clear-sighted argument made from within the…
Arguing with An-Na`im
What is interesting about An-Na`im's arguments is that they ground the case for the secular state not in the Quran,…
The Dobson/Obama Rorschach test
For years Barack Obama has courted the support of evangelicals. Way back in 2006, Obama served as the keynote speaker…
Disentangling Islam and the post-colonial state
The separation---and combination---of religion and state have created almost as many configurations as there are states in the world today.…
Liberating shari’a
Sometimes, context is everything. For much of the twentieth century, at least since the 1920s in Egypt and the 1900s…